She tried to warn him, but her breath came in shallow, rib-racking gasps too weak to form words, much less shout.
The Beetle took the corner, arcing toward Will, who wasn’t getting out of the way. He was shouting and waving his arms in the middle of the road, like some B-movie hero who didn’t have a stunt double.
“Will,” Emma managed to rasp, her mind already flattening him beneath the small car, her heart already mourning him despite him being such a pain.
At the last moment, Will jumped aside, leaped onto the driver’s running board and clung to the open window.
With one last earsplitting squeal of tires, the engine died and the car jolted to a stop.
“I’ll kill him.” Emma wasn’t sure if she meant the driver or Will. Probably whoever she reached first.
Groaning, she picked herself up and made her way to the road on shaky legs that threatened to buckle and an ankle that protested every step. Her body felt sluggish and numb, but her brain was reaching for strong words she planned to use very soon.
The entire car, including the windshield, was caked with dust. Emma couldn’t see who was driving. Cobwebs covered the headlights, hung like garlands from the hubcaps.
Emma leaned in the open passenger window opposite Will, ready to chew the driver out. And then she realized who it was. “Mildred?”
Mildred’s lower lip trembled. Her fingers kneaded the steering wheel. “I just wanted... I just wanted... I just wanted to prove I could still drive.” And then she started to cry.
Emma’s anger deflated on a gush of air. Mildred had taught Emma to drive when she was fifteen, risking whiplash and Granny Rose’s wrath. It was Mildred who’d loaned her a vintage Mercedes-Benz coupe one weekend when Emma was a dateless bridesmaid. It was Mildred who’d traded in her car keys—well, almost all her car keys—for a candy-apple-red walker.
Will’s gaze found Emma’s. “You okay?”
She nodded. Now that the anger was gone, feeling had started returning to her body. Her battered, scraped up, blood-oozing body. Emma leaned more heavily on the car door. Dirt from her arms sprinkled onto the seat. She could feel debris in her shoes, down her sports bra and up the back of her shorts.
Mildred wiped at a tear. “I’m worthless. I can’t see. I can’t walk. I can’t do anything anymore.”
“That’s not true.” Emma’s heart went out to her. “You’ve been taking care of yourself for years. That’s not easy for someone with a walker.”
Will gave Emma an approving look.
“Don’t try to make me feel better. I’ve made up my mind. I’m worthless.” Mildred’s hands dropped to her lap. “Drive me down to the morgue. I’ve outlived my reason for being.”
“No more talk like that. You’re on the town council, aren’t you? You picked the wrong road, is all. You should stick to straightaways.” Will shot Emma a significant look that seemed to say “go with me here.”
The problem was a tiny voice in Emma’s head wanted to go with Will anywhere, at odds with her artistic dreams, which demanded she go it alone.
“Curves are tough,” Emma agreed. Especially curves with fifty-foot drop-offs, bike riders, joggers and unsuspecting squirrels. Mildred was lucky she hadn’t killed herself on one of the other switchbacks above them.
“You won’t tell Agnes and Rose, will you?” she sniffed. “I’ll put the car back in the carport, I promise.”
“It’ll be our little secret if you let us drive you home,” Will assured her, using his forearm to wipe at the caked dirt on the windshield.
Emma very carefully promised nothing. She hoped Will had his fingers crossed behind his back.
“I knew I could trust you.” Mildred brightened. “I don’t want to interrupt your run. I should be fine driving home from here. I know the way like the back of my hand.”
Will reached in and took the keys from the ignition. “We insist. I’ll help you get in the passenger seat, since I don’t see your walker in the back.”
“I left it in the driveway.” Mildred had the grace to blush.
“Hop in the back, Emma.” Will was in command mode.
Emma was in no mood to be bossed around. “I can ride my bike home.” She turned to look uphill. She didn’t see her bike at first. And then she looked higher. The frame had been speared by an oak branch about ten feet below the road where she’d been hit. The slope she’d fallen down was a steep obstacle course of trees, thick fallen branches and rocks the size of Saint Bernards. She could have been killed.
Emma’s legs gave out and she crumpled to the pavement.
* * *
WILL HAD TO practically lift Emma into the backseat of the old Beetle. She hadn’t passed out, but her face was a clammy green color that worried him. She didn’t say a word on the drive to Mildred’s house. Very un-Emma-like.
They settled Mildred into her favorite recliner. From there, she could see her big-screen television and—if she wasn’t legally blind—she could have seen her racing pictures on the wall. Given what he’d heard over the years about her career, Will was curious.
One black-and-white photo showed a vintage race car wrapped around a tree. “Did you crash this car in a race?”
“You could say that. I was forced off the track during my victory lap by some very resentful men.” There was regret in her normally sweet-tempered voice. “I got over it. Took a long time, but I got over it.”
Despite being banged up pretty bad, Emma made Mildred a cup of tea. She didn’t complain or lay blame. But Will wasn’t sure her steady state would last much longer.
“I’m borrowing your car to take Emma home,” he told Mildred.
“When you bring it back, make sure you hang the keys on the hook by the kitchen door so I can find them when I need them.” Mildred started to smile and then seemed to think better of it.
Will helped Emma up from the couch. She had to be hurting, otherwise she’d be telling him not to boss her around. “We’ll talk more about driving privileges when I get back.”
“Oh. Okay.” Mildred sighed.
It only took a few silent minutes to drive to Rose’s house. Will was really worried now.
“Thanks for the ride.” Emma opened the creaky car door slowly, swinging one foot out at a time.
She moved so carefully Will was able to shut off the car and come around to the passenger side before Emma stood up.
“I can take it from here.” She limped forward.
Will took her gently by the arm. “The only reason I didn’t drive straight to the hospital is because your pupils aren’t dilated and you aren’t screaming in pain. I don’t think you’ve had a concussion.”
She walked in measured steps toward the porch. “Thanks for the astute diagnosis.” She groaned as she lifted her foot onto the first step. “I can go it alone from here.”
“Doubtful.” Will swept Emma into his arms. She gave a little mewling cry of protest, like one of Felix’s kittens, but didn’t say another word as he carried her up to the front door. He fumbled with the screen to get in. No one locked their doors in Harmony Valley. “Rose? Are you home?”
“She’s working on The Music Man with those kids in Cloverdale this morning. Agnes drove her.”
Emma was cradled against his chest as if she belonged there, her arm looped around his neck. They crossed the threshold as if they were a newly married couple, except they weren’t married. They weren’t in once-in-a-lifetime finery. He reeked of sweat and she smelled like someone had tried to bury her alive.
It was a miracle she hadn’t broken her neck on that hill or hit her head. That was twice now that she’d walked away from disaster—once with Tracy and once with him. “You need to buy a lottery ticket.”
Emma squirmed. “You can put me down now.”
He didn’t want to. In his arms
, she was safe. “You need a bath.” Will turned to the stairs. By the time he got to the second-floor landing he was almost as sweaty and winded as he’d been during their race. He deposited her carefully in the bathroom and started the bathwater.
“I think you’ve fulfilled your Boy Scout pledge for the day.” Emma waved him toward the bathroom door, but even that effort lacked her usual spunk.
Will stepped closer and picked a twig out of her dark hair. It would be so easy to slip his palm into the crook in her neck, draw her close and kiss her, if only to reassure himself that she was okay. He’d watched helplessly as Emma was flung from her bike. The slow-motion horror of it returned to him in a rush. His hands wanted to shake. His breath wanted to catch. His mind wanted to erase the memory.
She could have hit her head and ended up like Tracy. A few days ago he’d wished Tracy’s fate on Emma. How ironic that today he felt differently.
“I’m fine. I’ll live to bowl another day.” Emma’s voice was barely above a whisper, as if she, too, was sensing her mortality.
Will looked her up and down one more time to make sure she was indeed fine and still standing before him instead of lying in broken pieces on Parish Hill, with Mildred and her Beetle a mangled mess somewhere nearby. He wouldn’t have been able to call for help if anything serious had happened up there. He would’ve had to run to the top of the hill for cell service or down into town for a landline. But he couldn’t have left them if they needed CPR or a tourniquet or a hand to hold as they lay dying.
Will’s body did shake then. With rage. The entire town, including Emma, wore blinders. They needed what had become basic necessities, like cell-phone service and a volunteer fire department. “This can’t go on.”
“I agree,” she said on a bone-tired sigh. “I’m not going to race you to the top of Parish Hill anymore. In fact, as soon as I get Granny Rose to the doctor, I’m leaving.”
“I mean, the town has to stop fighting us on these changes.” His words snapped with anger, no hint of the fear and caring that had spawned them. “What’s it going to take? Someone dying? You dying?”
With a growl of possession, Will wrapped both hands around Emma’s neck, tugged her close and planted a kiss on her mouth that was far from gentle. Just as quickly, he released her and spun away.
“I... You... Don’t...” she sputtered.
He was already on the landing. “I’ll be back to check on you in an hour. Answer the door or I’ll assume you’ve passed out and need CPR.”
She let loose a primitive yell and then slammed the bathroom door.
Will laughed. It was a maniacal sort of laugh. The kind where you knew you were in deep trouble, but didn’t have a clue how to get out.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
EMMA WASN’T GOING to let Will in after that drive-by kiss of his.
It shouldn’t have left her body on fire. It shouldn’t have targeted and disabled her speech center with arrow-like accuracy. It shouldn’t have lingered in her thoughts.
She’d meant what she’d told him. She was leaving as soon as she knew Granny Rose was going to be okay.
But—
Emma cut off the thought. She locked the doors downstairs and watched for him through her second-story open bedroom window, perched on the sill. She rotated the ice pack she’d made downstairs from one bruise to another—her cheek, her elbow, her thigh. Thank heavens her ankle wasn’t sprained. It ached, but it wasn’t swollen.
Will emerged from the trees by the river right on time, his expression as grim as the black T-shirt that hugged his chest.
“Hey,” she called down to him. “I’m good. Thanks for checking. Go on about your business.” She waved him off.
Will shaded his eyes as he looked up at her. “You are my business for the rest of the day.”
His declaration sent the same speech-muting arrow to her brain that had disarmed her in the bathroom. By the time she’d regained her senses, he stood in her bedroom doorway.
“How’d you get up here? I locked the doors.”
He brushed back a lock of wet hair, the normally bright gold color muted to a somber almost brown. “Everyone in Harmony Valley keeps a spare key above the back door,” Will said as he stepped inside.
The room seemed to shrink, along with Emma’s ability to breathe.
She shifted the ice pack to her cheek. Maybe she did have a concussion, because she could almost imagine him closing the distance between them and kissing her again. Deeply this time, with more opportunity for her hands to explore the hard planes and contours of his body.
Will paced the room, taking in the empty canvas, empty walls, twin bed and her open, messy suitcases. “Nice light in here. I can see why you chose it. But why aren’t any of your pictures on the walls?” He touched the canvas perched on the easel. “And why is this blank? Everyone always talks about you painting nonstop when you’re here.”
If he hadn’t kissed her... If he hadn’t barged into her bedroom... If she hadn’t wanted him to kiss her again.... That was a lot of “ifs.” But without them, Emma might have deflected his question. As it was, she was caught totally off guard. “I haven’t been in a creative mood.”
The cameos she’d sketched in crayon of her grandmother and hidden in the back of the closet didn’t count.
He studied her face, his scrutiny causing her to blush beneath the ice pack, because she knew he knew that deep down she wanted a real kiss.
It was a relief when Will released her from his gaze, once more taking in the blank walls and canvas. “Blocked, huh?”
Emma shifted the ice pack to her elbow and didn’t answer.
“Does the empty canvas taunt you until you want to throw it in the trash?”
His insight surprised her. “You have no idea.”
“I hear people get over blocks if they take a break from their work.” His blue eyes held understanding, not sympathy. “Try something new.”
“Thanks for the advice.” She had been trying something new—working with crayons. Not much market for Crayola art, but it might keep her sane in her old age.
“Well...you know...” He ran his finger down the side of the canvas. She imagined him running that finger down her neck, along her collarbone. “I’m going through something like that myself.”
Emma laughed. “When does a computer programmer get blocked?”
He gripped the corner of canvas so tight she thought he might stretch it out of shape. “Who do you think comes up with the idea for a game or an application?”
Shrew, thy name was Emma. “I’m sorry. I don’t know much about technology.” Which was why—when added to her passion to create and her inability to protect those around her—whatever was going on between them would never amount to anything. They were worlds apart. She loved her iPhone for its beauty and simplicity. He probably loved his for the amazing things it could do.
Will retreated to the opposite side of the room, putting his hands behind his back and leaning up against the wall, speaking as if he read her mind. “I may not know much about painting, and you may not know much about computer programming, but we’re more alike than you think.”
“Being alike doesn’t matter. Without forgiveness, whatever this is between us—” and hopefully she wasn’t making a fool of herself by admitting she thought there was something “—it can’t go anywhere.”
Somewhere along the line, this computer nerd had perfected the dark and dangerous look.
Emma needed to remember that as much as Will’s attention excited her, if he never forgave her for the accident....
“Do you blame Mildred for what happened to me today?”
His eyes stroked over her, leaving a heat trail even the ice pack couldn’t extinguish. “Mildred caused the accident. Of course she’s to blame.” His words were spoken almost absentmindedly, as
if his thoughts weren’t totally on the conversation.
Regret clenched its cold fingers around Emma’s throat, making it hard to speak. “You don’t say that in the same tone of voice you use when you talk about Tracy’s accident. Or about me causing it.”
Will’s gaze hardened.
He didn’t forgive her. And chances were he never would. She had to swallow more than once to get the words out, to lay down boundaries that they’d both breached. “Your lack of forgiveness combined with my goals means you have to stop looking at me like that.”
“I’ve tried to stop, but I don’t think I can.” His voice was soft and hard at the same time, but his eyes had that lost look, like they’d had the other day when he’d talked about being afraid of spiders. “Tell me about your goals, Emma.”
This was where she made a stand for what was important to her. This was where he’d realize how poor a choice she was for a relationship—with him or Tracy.
“Whatever was going on in my head the day of the car accident, it was all about those mountains instead of the road and our safety. And now I can’t even mentally compose a painting without the fear of that day overtaking me.” She couldn’t meet his gaze. “I can’t look around me without seeing the complex layers and color. I’ve never been able to look at a forest and not see the trees. To have lost the ability to express the beauty I see around me is like cutting away a piece of who I am. Do you know what that’s like? It’s more than a block, it’s an emptiness where I used to be.” She drew a shuddering breath. “But that doesn’t matter. Now that I’m sure Tracy will be okay... And after I’m sure Granny Rose is fine, I’m going away. I need to be alone for a long time.” Understatement. She was going to be alone forever if that was what it took to reclaim her art.
“So you want to be alone? You need time to get yourself together? I can give you that.”
“I’m not asking you to wait for me.” Emma gripped the ice pack. “I’m choosing my career over family. And...and...close relationships. That’s why I can’t kiss you.”
To his credit, he considered her words before responding. “You’re going through a rough time. But you’ve been painting for years and no one ever got hurt around you. Your art and your personal relationships can coexist.”
Dandelion Wishes Page 16
